College Football Top 10 (Part 1)

By Bryan Leonard

This week I’ll run down ten college football teams that could be in the running for the national title, based on returning starters, talent and schedule.

10. Georgia: The quiet football factory at Georgia continues to impress under Head Coach Mark Richt. The defense allowed 16 ppg last season and will lead the way again, led by All-America candidate DE Quentin Moses, a fierce pass rusher. The linebacking corps is also deep behind senior Jarvis Jackson.

The offensive line has new pieces and QB D.J. Shockley is gone. But senior QB Joe Tereshinski (371 yards) stepped in when Shockley was hurt last season and played well. Richt likes a balanced offense and has a powerful ground game behind junior RB Thomas Brown and junior Danny Ware. Georgia is 21-6 SU/17-10 ATS on the road under Richt! Six of their first eight games are at home, with only tough road games at South Carolina and Auburn.

9. Miami: Head Coach Larry Coker revamped his coaching staff, bringing in Rich Olson to run the offense and John Palermo will run the defensive line (from Wisconsin). Olson ran the Miami offense during some of their glory years in the 1990s. Junior QB Kyle Wright (18 TDs, 10 INTs) returns, along with junior WR Lance Leggett and 6-foot-6 junior TE Greg Olsen. The running game provides balance because of senior tailback Tyrone Moss (701 yards, 5.1 ypc) and the tough defense allowed just 14 points per game and 3 yards per rush! Run stuffers like DE Bryan Pata and senior DT Baraka Atkins return and there are several revenge games, including Florida State and Georgia Tech (the latter upset Miami at home). Is this still a great football program? Miami just had a first-round NFL draft choice for a record 12th consecutive year.

8. L.S.U: LSU impressed under first-year Head Coach Les Miles, going 11-2. They played a lot of road games, too, because of Hurricane Katrina. The Tigers averaged 29.5 points, 150 yards rushing and 224 passing. Junior Quarterback JaMarcus Russell returns despite a serious shoulder injury late last season.

The ground game features senior RB Alley Broussard and Justin Vincent, while there is good depth at wideout. One thing Nick Saban left Miles was a talented defense, which has five starters back to a unit that ranked among the top five in the nation in three categories. The line is solid behind senior DT Glenn Dorsey and junior DE Carnell Stewart. This year’s schedule is challenging, with road games at Auburn, Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas. But LSU was 5-0 SU, 4-0 ATS on the road last season!

7. Notre Dame: Hats off to Charlie Weis, who electrified the Irish attack in his first year as head coach. Under his imaginative spread offense Notre Dame averaged 36.7 points, 147 yards rushing and 330 passing per game! 7 starters return on offense, so watch out. Senior QB Brady Quinn is back after passing for 32 TDs, just 7 INTs and 3,919 yards.

Three starters return to the offensive line. Junior RB Darius Walker (1,196 yards, 9 TDs) led the Irish in rushing and caught 43 passes for 351 yards. Quinn has quality targets in 6-foot-5 senior WR Jeff Samardzija (1,274 yards, 15 TDs), senior WR Rhema McKnight and 6-foot-6 junior TE John Carlson. The defense is average, though 9 starters return, so the offense may have to carry the load. The schedule isn’t that bad, outside of a revenge trip to USC.

6. U.S.C: 2006 hasn’t been kind to the Trojans, with the shocking loss to Texas in January for the national title, the loss of its best offensive players to the NFL, and some embarrassing off-field problems. The offense won’t be as devastating, but will be potent. New quarterback junior John David Booty steps in (327 yards, 64.3% completions, 3 TDs, 2 INTs in 2005). The best news of all is that the best wide receiving duo in the nation is back in senior Steve Smith and junior WR Dwayne Jarrett (1,274 yards, 16 TDs). Pete Carroll has some teaching to do with the defense, especially with a young secondary. USC is 20-0 SU, 14-6 ATS at home the last three seasons! Road trips to Arkansas and UCLA could be challenging, along with home dates with Nebraska, Arizona State, Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame.

Bryan Leonard is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Bryan_Leonard.htm

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NFC North 2006 Previews and Projections

By James Campbell

1) Chicago: da’Bears made the playoffs by breaking out with an 11-6 record last year which was their first winning season since 2001 and figure to battle a now healthy Packer team for the divisional crown this season. In truth these Bears were able to win the divisional crown last year because of the fact that the rest of the division had a very down year as evidenced by GB, Detroit, and Minny combining for a shoddy 18-30 record in 2005. Chicago had a very strong defense last season and good play on that side of the ball will be needed again this year if they want to match last years win total. The Bears have a lot of question marks on an offense that ranked a shoddy 29th overall last year and it starts with QB Rex Grossman’s ability to stay off the injury list, as an insurance policy Chicago brought in Brian Griese to back up Grossman. The Bears also have disgruntled RB Thomas to deal with and a possible training camp injury to starting RB Cedric Benson. Projected record: 10-6

**Look to play AGAINST these Bears in their Monday Night game on October 16th at Arizona, the Cards are only the 2nd playoff caliber team the Bears will have faced at this point in the season. Brand new Cardinal Stadium will surely be rocking and rolling since this is the Cards first MNF appearance since 1999, its also nice to know that four of the Bears six losses from a year ago occurred when playing on the road.

2) Green Bay: Never mind the fact that QB Brett Favre finished last year ranked a very shoddy 14th out of 16 starting NFC Quarterbacks in terms of QB rating and threw an eye opening 29 interceptions against 20 TD's, they begged him to come back, instead the blame was placed solely on HC Mike Sherman. The Packer organization fired HC Mike Sherman for having a 4-12 season last year after he had posted winning seasons in each of his first five years in Packer land and had made the playoffs in each of the four seasons prior to last year. The truth of the matter is that GB suffered serious injuries to key players on both sides of the ball last year and especially on offense where virtually every starting skill position had players succumb to injury except for QB Brett Favre and WR Donald Driver. In Sherman’s place the Packers hired first time HC Mike McCarthy who will look like a genius in winning 10 or 11 games this year, all because the Packers will be healthy once again and were able to pick high in the draft which allowed them to snag linebacker A.J. Hawk with the 5th overall selection, the free agent signing of CB Charles Woodson should shore up the Packer defensive secondary as well. Projected record: 10-6

**Look to play ON these Packers in their October 8th home game against the visiting Rams, St Louis will be playing on the road for the 3rd time in a 4 week span and has a divisional battle versus Seattle on deck, meanwhile, according to the ole history book GB is a perfect 4-0 ATS in their last 4 home games against NFC West teams.

3) Minnesota: These Vikings are one of three teams in this division to bring in a new first time head coach to take the helm with the hiring of HC Brad Childress. The Vikes have won 9 games each of the past three seasons which is really a middle of the road kind of performance, not bad enough to garner top draft picking and not good enough to consistently make the playoffs, hence the reason for HC Mike Tice’s firing (finally!!). For a second straight year the Vikings let a franchaise player get away with the loss of QB Duante Culpepper to Miami and will start 38 year old journeyman QB Brad Johnson who played very well for the Vikes during the second half of last season following Culpepper’s knee injury. Minny had a terrible draft and really didn’t help themselves much in free agency other than the acquisition of RB Chester Taylor and LG Steve Hutchinson to bolster the running game. The Vikes are an aging team with a new first time HC who is installing all new schemes and it adds up to a sub par season. Projected record: 6-10

**Look to play ON these Vikings when they visit Buffalo on October 1st, the Bills will be coming off three straight divisional games and thus will experience a natural let down in this situation, Minny will probably be getting a couple of points and its nice to know that Minny has covered 4 of their last 5 games ATS following a game against the hated Bears.

4) Detroit: What is up with this Lion organization, when are they going to wake up and get rid of GM Matt Millen? Millen was nothing more than a former player who had a broad casting gig with Fox Sports, he had no coaching experience at all nor did he have any front office experience. Yet Millen was hired to assume the GM Duties following the Lions 9-7 season in 2000. Since Millen’s arrival in Detroit the Lions have not had a winning season nor have they won more than 6 games in any single year over the past five seasons under his guidance. Its head shaking stuff that in Millen’s five years in Detroit the Lions have posted a shoddy combined mark of 21-59 and yet he is still the GM! This year the Lions will start their 3rd head coach since Millen took over, this time around they start a brand new HC that has never held the head position (Rod Marinelli). In the big picture these Lions have a brand new first time HC, they have the “mad bomber” Mike Martz installing his complicated offense, they have a new QB under center, and they have a losing mentality to overcome, add it all up and it equals yet another losing year for the Lion faithful. Projected record: 4-12

**Look to play the UNDER when Detroit visits St Louis on October 1st, both teams are in transition with new first time HC’s who want to control the game’s tempo by using the running game, meanwhile, the public will in all likelihood expect a high scoring affair because that is usually what they got in Ram home games.

Jim Campbell runs http://www.FootballForecastor.com which has been an internet based sports handicapping service since 1997, you will be hard pressed to find another handicapper that has had the kind of success Jim has had, over the past eight years he has maintained one of the very best winning percentages of any sports handicapping service.

Jim Campbell finished the final four weeks of the 2005 NFL regular season with a mark of 14-5-2 ATS coming down the stretch for a winning rate of 73.68% and for the season in the NFL he finished with an overall mark of 48-33-4 ATS for a winning rate of 59.26% and that includes a perfect mark of 7-0 ATS in the NFL Playoffs, Jim has posted a mark of 6-2 ATS over the past EIGHT years with his Super Bowl selecton.

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